Artificial Nine
by Chaytel Solverre
Summary: Sally Acorn is captured and spirited off to a secret genetic lab. Her only hope for escape lies in her captor, a childlike, innocent creature called Nine. She must reach out and touch his inner personality and emotions before he destroys her own.
1. Prologue

**Artificial Nine**

**Phase Zero:** _'Capture'_

Overnight missions were the worst ones. As Princess Sally Alicia Acorn, leader of the resistance, crouched beneath the shadow of a rain-soaked chunk of concrete she lamented her choice of running an overnight mission. Night missions were dangerous too, of course. There were increased patrols to make up for the darkness, and daytime missions increased the risk of being detected, but the overnights combined the worst of both worlds.

To make matters worse, she was alone. Sonic was down for a day or two with a sprained ankle, and he was the only other member of the Freedom fighters she was comfortable taking on an overnight mission, due to the danger. She was expected back in a little over a day, and a rescue party would come looking for her if she wasn't at the rendezvous point by then; but she would be on her own with only her wits to protect her until then. Well, not quite entirely on her own...

"Nicole", she whispered, flipping open her small palmtop computer. "Bring up a map of this district. Silent mode, please."

The computer silently complied with the order, and a three-dimensional map of the city section slowly drew itself on the computer display. A sudden sound drifted into the princess' shadowed shelter through the pounding rain outside, forcing her to hurriedly close the computer to hide it's glow.

The rhythmic march of metal feet outside announced a contingent of SWATbots on patrol. Sally put her hands over her face and peered narrowly through her fingers, afraid her large eyes would catch some reflective glint in the overcast afternoon gloom and give her away. Frightening as the plodding feet just inches away from her hiding place were, they were exactly what she was waiting for.

She'd been watching for a few hours, now, learning the new patrol paths and when they were soon coming or would be gone for some time. After this pass, she knew, there was ample time to plant a few of the explosives she'd brought with her and then return to hiding. Hopefully, if she could avoid detection, she would have the time and privacy over the next day to set an elaborate network of explosives that would bring down the city's power for a few days and open the way for more extensive sabotage in the future.

Satisfied that the patrol had passed her by, the princess checked he computer-generated map again, memorized her route and crawled out of her improvised sanctuary, satchel of explosives in hand. The pounding rain was unpleasant, but did little to hinder her as she evaded SWATbot sentries and patrols on her way to the first target building, a relay station integral to Robotropolis' power grid. No one had been in it for some time, evidently, as the latch where the ratcheting door met the ground had rusted shut. This setback would eat into her allotted time outside, but she was certain she could pry it open without too much trouble. Kneeling on the wet street, she gripped the latch with both hands and struggled to free it from it's brittle bonds when she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of one eye. The splash of a soft footstep behind her made he shoot to her feet immediately, spinning around to face whatever had managed to sneak up on her in the rain.

It was a Mobian, at least superficially. The green-furred fox that stood before her was completely without any clothing to shield him from the elements, but seemed to ignore the pounding, polluted rain that soaked him. Most alarmingly, though, were his eyes; pure white, they cast a faint radiance that marked him as something unsettling and unnatural. Better for her, given the situation, to run first and think about it later.

Sally pushed off from the sheet metal door and tried to force herself past him, only to have him clamp a vice-like hand on her shoulder and shove her back against the door once again. The strange Mobian tilted his head at her and arched a brow silently. With no other course of action against an obviously hostile attacker, the princess balled a fist and punched him square in the nose.

It likely hurt her more than it did him, as he was unmoved. Surprised by the action enough to release her, he touched a hand to his uninjured nose, then mimicked the balled fist, punching straight at her head like a piston. Sally ducked just in time to hear the sturdy metal of the door groan and buckle as the mighty blow penetrated through it and the strange Mobian male sank elbow-deep into the deformed door. He would have easily killed her if the punch had connected.

Sally ran as her attacker freed himself and studied his unharmed fist, opening and closing it with the curiosity of a child. It was a machine, she reasoned. No one was strong enough to punch a hole in solid metal the way he had. It was some sort of Mobian-styled assassin robot meant to surprise and kill her. It quickly snapped back to attention when it noticed her fleeing and gave chase with incredible speed.

Sally slid to a stop and spun, kicking at it's head in an attempt to disable it, but her attacker was far faster; it ducked the blow and grabbed her arm at the moment when was most unbalanced, twisting it with enough force to flip her over backwards into a puddle. Her scream from the sudden dislocating pain and startling impact with the ground seemed to surprise the killer machine, as it let go and took a step backwards; a decidedly un-robotic response.

Sally again struggled to escape, only to have the fox's iron grip on the back of her neck. He easily lifted her with one hand and turned her to face him. Her last sight was the strange fox's face, brows arched in a disarming, childlike curiosity as she faded into unconsciousness from the pain and the squeezing pressure on the back of her neck.


	2. Chapter 1

**Artificial Nine**

**Phase One:** _'Number Nine'_

Darkness. Sally Acorn awoke to the world again, one sense at a time. The chemical stench and the faint taste of blood in her mouth told her she was still alive. The chafing restraints that bound her ankles and wrists to the table she lay on made her question just how fortunate she was. Her hearing returned to her next, the beeps and quiet hum of computers and equipment were all around her, wherever she was. Sally blinked, and the sterile, irritating glow of the lamp above her brought her back to reality.

No, those weren't lamps, they were eyes. The glowing gaze of the strange Mobian that had attacked her was upon her again, with the same curious look from before. He seemed as though he wanted to speak, but before either of them could say anything he walked away and began working with a control console on a nearby wall. Sally strained to be able to pan her head to see him, but there was no need; a large monitor deployed from the ceiling, and the grinning, corpulent visage of Dr. Ivo Robotnik made her situation very clear.

Before he even finished laughing at her, the words 'DR. ROBOTNIK SPEAKING' began flashing at the bottom of the image, a vain and almost comically pompous message that would have made her roll her eyes at him, if she weren't so afraid it would make her already terrible headache any worse. "Well, well. My dear Princess Sally, it is, as usual, good to have you as a guest."

"Oh please." She rolled her eyes regardless, involuntarily. "Spare me the gloating, Robotnik. What is all this? How did you even find me?"

"Ah! A picture is worth a thousand words, my dear." The bald Overlander disappeared from the monitor, replaced with a still image from a security camera robot. It clearly showed part of her foot, retreating around a corner. Robotnik's voice spoke over the image. "One of my camera drones picked up this little bit of footage earlier this afternoon, and there's only one irritating little fur-ball I know of that wears blue boots."

"Ugh." The princess sighed in disgust at being found in such an obvious and stupid way. "Sonic is going to-"

"SONIC," Robotnik's face returned to the monitor as he loudly interrupted. "is not here, princess!" The monitor lowered further, slowly, until it was almost pressed to her nose. "While you have been so covertly observing my troops, I have also been observing yours; most notably your complete lack of them. You are acting alone on your mission, and that means Sonic and your other little friends _don't_ know you've been captured, _don't_ know where you've been taken, and _don't_ know how to rescue you!" He accented each 'don't' heavily, almost spitting the word at her. "Nine! You know what to do from here. I'll check back in on our little science project later. Good-bye, princess!" The monitor and his sneering face retracted quickly, almost slamming back into the ceiling as it disappeared behind its protective panel.

Sally was alone again, in silence. Alone, save for the strange green fox that now sat at a nearby desk. Periodically, he would input some sort of command at the computer on his desk, and a whirling device would deploy from beneath the table she lay on and bathe her in light as it whirred along a track. He would nod a little or tilt his head, and take a glance at her, then repeat the procedure. Eventually, the silence became too much for her to take. Trying to talk to the strange figure was better than laying there letting it do whatever it was doing. "Can you speak?"

"Yes." The fox looked up at her, expectantly for a moment.

Sally found herself surprised at the response. It was short, but very polite, rather than terse. His voice wasn't mechanical at all, and he was surprisingly soft-spoken. It begged the next obvious question. "Are you a machine?"

The fox paused briefly, apparently to consider the question and his answer. "Yes. In as much as anyone is. We are all machines, electrochemical in nature." He stared at her confused expression. "Ah, it is more likely you mean to ask me if I am inorganic, in which case the answer becomes 'no'. I am fully organic." Another device shone on her as it slid past and the fox's computer beeped. "As are you, according to the scans. That is good; any roboticized limbs or cybernetic implants could have potentially complicated the procedures." His voice, while it had inflection and changed tones, was noticeably lacking in any emotion. He was very mechanical, despite his claim, but Sally was nonetheless inclined to believe him.

Since he seemed to be her only source of information on her situation, Sally continued to quietly ask him questions. "What is your name?"

"I do not understand your question."

This response took her aback a bit. "Your... your name." Sally overcame the pain in her neck and head to turn to look at him better. "What are you called?"

"My designation is 'Nine'." Nine answered succinctly.

"I... see." Sally returned to staring at the ceiling. Perhaps volunteering something about herself would make things go a little more smoothly. "... my name is Sally."

There was a short, awkward pause. "That is incorrect." Nine finally replied, "Your designation is 'Ten'.

"What!"

"That is incorrect." He repeated, exactly the same as before. "Your designation is 'Ten'.

"What are you talking about?" She tried to sit up, momentarily forgetting her restraints, which painfully reminded her of their presence.

"I am talking about your designation." Nine remained completely unaffected by the conversation, speaking to her as he worked. He showed neither the irritation of someone frustrated with the discussion, or the bemusement of someone playing a confusing joke. He was serious, but calm and quiet, never interrupting his work.

Sally, on the other had, had had enough. "What are you doing?" She demanded.

"Presently, I am discussing your designation with you." He noted politely. He seemed to sense her growing irritation, and volunteered more information. "Prior to that, I was conducting some basic scans of your body with the aid of the glowing machine you have periodically seen passing by you. I have since concluded the scans."

It was only then, at the mention of body scans, that Sally took in her surroundings. She was in a lab, but not like the robotics labs she'd seen before. This was clearly a medical facility, and that revelation had very frightening connotations for her. "Why am I here? Why am I restrained?" Nervousness crept into her voice.

"You are here because I brought you here, under orders from Father." Nine slowly scooted his seat away from the desk and stood, quietly walking to her side as he explained. "As for your restraints, they are in place to prevent you from moving too much during the scans. Since the scans have concluded for the moment, I may remove your restraints, if you wish. Would you like for me to remove them?" He quirked his head to one side, expressionless.

"You want to remove the-" Sally paused. What was wrong with this person? What 'father'? Why was he letting her go, knowing they were enemies? "Yes..." She glanced aside. Why think about it if he was giving her a chance to escape? "Yes, I would like that. Please do."

Nine pressed the release button on the table's console and immediately, the restraints on the captured ground squirrel's ankles and wrists unlocked and vanished into panels inside the table.

Sally immediately kicked him across the face as hard as she could, hoping to knock him out long enough to flee. Satisfied at his stagger and subsequent slide out of view behind the table, she leapt off it, ignoring the pain in her freed limbs, and was quickly stopped at the locked door of the lab. She quickly tried the first codes that came to mind; old pass-codes that Robotnik had been known to use before, but all were rejected. Remembering seeing Nicole laying on the desk, she turned to recover the computer, only to come face to face with Nine once more, totally unharmed.

"Do you require assistance? The pass-code for this door is eight-five-eight-three." He made no move against her, no attempt at retaliation and showed no sign of anger at having been kicked in the head moments before.

Shocked at his silent and instant recovery, Sally took a nervous step backwards, bumping into the door. Never taking her eyes off him, the princess felt for the keypad and slowly entered the code. Her eyes went wide at the soft metallic swish of it accepting the code and opening behind her. "Wh... but... Nine?" This would force her to re-evaluate the unnerving Mobian. "Why are you helping me escape?" Her voice was quiet, now, and confused. Could Robotnik be playing a mind game with her? It wasn't his style, why bother?

"Oh." Nine answered as if the thought had never occurred to him. "Are you attempting to escape? That is against the rules. I am sorry, but Father specifically told me not to allow you to escape. Please refrain from escaping."

"But..." Sally stopped, trying to understand what was going on. Nothing he said made any sense at all. "All right, let's try it this way. Nine, who is your father?"

"Doctor Julian Ivo Robotnik."

"What!"

"Doctor Julian Ivo Robotnik."

"No, I mean... how is that possible?" Sally's plan of escape moved to the back of her mind. Something was very wrong here, and she still needed to retrieve Nicole before she could leave. "You're a Mobian, right? He's not."

This prompted perhaps the most animated response she had seen from him. Nine's hands twitched, as if he were going to raise them to gesture, but stopped before he could begin."Father gave me life. Although he is not biologically my father, he is still responsible for my creation. Therefore, by my definition, he is my father." After a moment, he volunteered further, "I have no biological father. That is not to say that my biological father no longer exists, but rather that he never existed."

Sally wasn't speaking to a Mobian after all, she realized. At least not in the conventional sense, if Nine was telling the truth. He was some sort of artificial being. Though this didn't change her caution towards him, it did evoke a sense of pity. Should she help him? Could she if she tried? She had to say something, at least. "Listen to me, Nine." She pointed back into the room she'd just escaped from. "I need to get my computer from in there, and then I must get out of here. Do you understand? Once I make contact with my friends, we can come back together, and we may be able to help you, okay? But you have to let me leave, Nine." She reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but thought better of touching him, lest he think she was moving to attack.

"I do not require assistance, Ten. Moreover, as I have said, you are not permitted to escape. If you attempt to do so, I will be required to return you to your restraints." Though is tone was the least threatening possible, to Sally it was the most intimidating. "Will you comply?"

It was clear he could kill her easily if he had a reason to. He'd been polite so far, and surprisingly accommodating, considering the circumstances and the fact that she'd just kicked him in the face minutes before. Although she was trapped, it was a very permissive prison, and it was better to be able to find an escape route on her own than return to the table. Sally sighed a little, and nodded. "All right Nine. I'll comply. If I'm allowed to walk around the lab, I promise not to leave it, okay?"

"I do not understand. What is 'promise'?" Nine quirked his head at her, brows raised. There was a certain childlike innocence about him.

"A... promise..." Sally bit her lip gently, thinking. "That's a way of swearing that someone is being honest." Never mind the fact that she wasn't being honest, he didn't need to know that part. "It's like swearing, or vowing that the person will do what they say they'll do. To assure you that they aren't being deceptive."

"I see." Nine nodded, satisfied with this explanation. "Are people usually deceptive? It would be more useful to always be honest, would it not? Why is a 'promise' necessitated, then?"

"To show trust." Sally's heart sank a little, both out of guilt for lying about her promise, and out of the fact that she was standing in a hallway in a frightening medical lab in Robotropolis, bantering with a bizarre Mobian that she knew was working for her sworn enemy. At the same time, there was a certain calming effect in explaining things to him, like teaching a child.

"Interesting. Very well." Nine nodded in acceptance of her offer. "Although Father specified that you were not to escape, he did not specifically say you were disallowed from walking around. I..." He paused, considering her lesson. "I promise that you will not be restrained. I do request, however, that you do not touch anything you do not understand, as there are some devices in this building that are dangerous and could cause you harm."

"It's a deal." Sally smiled faintly at him, happy to at least have some sort of working understanding with him, regardless of anything else. She had negotiated her freedom, even if he didn't realize it. Although sneaking out would likely be impossible without more door codes and a working knowledge of the building, all she had to do was find or assemble some sort of signal device or communicator and she would have a way to let Sonic and the others know what had happened. She still wasn't sure what Robotnik intended to do with her, but if Sonic and the others could help her escape before he had a chance to, it wouldn't matter.

"Are you hungry? I can get you your assigned meal now, if you wish." Nine offered politely.

Sally considered it. Although she was loathe to eat anything in this creepy, sterile place for fear of it being part of some horrible experiment, her empty stomach was begging her to reconsider. "...Yes, please. I would like that, Nine." If nothing else, it got him away from her for a few minutes so she could do some snooping.

Snooping was exactly what she did. The moment her curious captor left her sight, she stepped back inside the lab and went straight to the desk, retrieving Nicole and opening the computer. "Nicole..." she whispered. "Can you get a communication signal in here?"

Still in silent mode, the computer displayed a text-based answer.

[Unable to acquire a signal. This facility is either heavily shielded, or something is interfering with the communication in the area, possibly both. I am able to use wireless access to the computer beside me to download some basic information on the building, however. It appears to be very high-security, although the immediate area around this room is relatively benign. Sneaking out will prove highly improbable.]

"Is there anywhere I could tie you in to the communication network at?"

[To attempt to 'piggyback' a signal out of the building? No, unfortunately. All communications to this building appear to be run from a direct wire connection to a neighboring structure, most likely to prevent exactly that.]

"Any ideas at all on how we can get out of here?"

[Your guess is as good as mine, Sally.] A small avatar of Nicole appeared on the screen, shrugging momentarily with a large question mark floating over it's head. [I would say 'by any means necessary'. If a conventional escape is impossible, explore unconventional means. There must be something here that can help.]

Indeed, there was one very helpful thing that just might be useful in escaping. "Nine..." Sally whispered, nodding as the realization dawned on her.

"Yes?" The emotionless, quiet voice of the bizarre green Mobian responded, right behind her.

Sally let out a stifled scream in surprise, and fluidly flipped Nicole shut on the desk as she turned to face him. "You... how did..." A few deep breaths calmed her down. "You... don't make a sound at all when you walk, do you?"

"No. I was designed not to." He offered her a steaming tray of some unidentifiable meat and mashed vegetables with a fork sticking out of them. "Here is your meal."

"Oh, that's right." She'd almost forgotten in the moment, but the sight of food quickly reminded her what pretense she'd sent him off under. "Thank you, Nine. May I sit at your desk and eat?" She accepted the tray of food.

"You are welcome, and yes, you may." Nine pulled out the desk chair for her. "Please, take your time. You may rest after your meal, until tomorrow."

Sally took the first bite of her food; if this was what Robotnik ate every day, it was no wonder he was so irritated all the time. She ate it all the same. "Tell me more about yourself. I understand you're... different from me, but how, and why?"

"I am an artificial being, genetically engineered by Father to serve as a soldier. I will eventually be used in situations where a machine would be ineffective or undesirable, once I have proven myself to be stable." He answered every question in his polite, but emotionless and factual manner.

It made a little more sense now, Sally reasoned. He was certainly capable of being a fearsome opponent, even if it wasn't Robotnik's usual style. He must have found some research from the Great War, when Mobotropolis was a hub of desperate research to develop ways to improve their chances of victory. Genetic engineering wouldn't have been out of the question, she guessed. "What do you mean about 'proving yourself stable?"

"I am the ninth in a series of experiments. My previous eight brothers gradually became mentally unstable and went berserk. They were terminated. I have been active the longest of any at almost one month, now, and I have showed no sign of the instability."

"You're only a month old?" Sally was too hungry to interrupt her meal, but the story was as strange as it was intriguing, and she wanted him to explain more.

"Yes, chronologically speaking. I do not age in the same way that you do, however. I was created much as I am now, and will remain this way until I am terminated. You will be the first natural being to undergo this same genetic augmentation, but I am fully versed in the process that created me and I foresee no complications for you.

"...wait, hold on, what 'augmentation'?" Sally dropped her fork with a loud metallic clang. Robotnik's mention of a 'science project' suddenly entered her mind, and a feeling of dread washed over her. She wasn't hungry anymore.

"That is the nature of your presence here, Ten." Nine addressed her as 'Ten' once more, a name the princess now understood with horror. "You are to be augmented and utilized to terminate one 'hedgehog', according to Father. He believes you would make an ideal choice against this individual, for reasons I do not understand."

"No!" Sally dismissed the notion of subtlety and escape plans in light of this, she had to run. That is, if she could get out of her chair. Her limbs felt weighted and the room was beginning to spin. "No... you can't do... wh... what have you done to me...?" Her vision was fading to blackness.

Nine's calm voice echoed in her head as she strained to stay awake. "I added a sedative to your meal. You were visibly agitated, and would have had difficulty sleeping. Maintaining a proper amount of rest is essential to the experiment, and-"

Sally heard no more. Her too-heavy head hit the desk and she faded into unconsciousness for the second time that day.


	3. Chapter 2

**Artificial Nine**

**Phase Two:** _'Friends'_

For Sally Alicia Acorn, waking up in strange places after blacking out was fast becoming a common thing; a streak she'd be happy to break, if only she could. There was a loud thunderstorm outside; she could hear the sheeting rain breaking against the outside wall of the room she was in, and heard the loud peals of thunder as they came cracking down. For a moment, she imagined that her captivity was nothing but a dream; that she was somehow laying in her bed in Knothole, and listening to a summer storm as she relaxed and dozed late in the summer morning. She took a breath, counted to three, and wished with all her heart.

Only a fantasy. The drab gray ceiling that she saw upon opening her eyes was the reality that faced her. Trapped in Robotropolis, unwilling subject in an experiment that would likely make her a monster; her jailer was an enigmatic young man whose motive shifted back and forth between friendly and threatening without warning. He was there with her; Sally saw him, back turned, looking through the wide plastic window at the terrible storm outside. The flashes of lightning lit up the window, and she could see the reflection of his face. His eyes lost their unnatural glow in the flashes of bright ambiance that lit the room, and during each bright instant, she could see his eyes on his reflected face as they truly were; his white irises darting side to side, taking in the glory and terror of the storm with childlike innocence and awe.

There was something inexplicably comforting to Sally in seeing Nine's eyes behind their usual glow. Something about it made him feel less alien, more Mobian. He was Mobian, of course, or at least close enough; she'd realized that already, but hadn't been able to accept it until then. She could see him reasoning, and thinking, through the movement of his eyes, and that gave her hope for her future in his hands. Nine was not some mindless, soulless, organic automaton following a program. He was as capable of thought as she was, and she could reason with him, if only she could understand how he thought, and how to speak to him in his own way.

She'd seen that he was capable of thinking for himself, he'd reached conclusions based on things she had done or said. More than thought, he was actually able to be actively thoughtful, as evidenced by the makeshift bed she lay on; an assemblage of scrap cloth, gathered and shaped into something comfortable enough to sleep on. It was far from the standard bare floor accommodations she'd had when she'd spent the night in a Robotropolis cell before. He motions made the makeshift bed rustle faintly, and she saw Nine's keen ears twitch, picking up the barely audible noise over the raging storm outside.

The green furred fox turned to face her, and greeted her in his usual emotionless manner. "Good morning, Ten. Were you able to rest well?"

"I did, thank you, but could you call me 'Sally', instead, please?" The 'Ten' thing had to go, she had no intention of becoming a number, and the further she could distance herself from the idea, the better off her state of mind would be.

"I do not understand. Your designation is Ten, not 'Sally'."

Sally pondered a way around his frustrating, stony logic. "Well... is there any harm in calling me 'Sally'?"

Nine thought about it a moment, slowly shaking his head. "I do not understand your reasoning, but I do not see how calling you by a different designation will interfere with the experiment. I will call you Sally."

"Thank you, Nine. Would you like me to call you something else, too?" Sally sat up, smiling at him. At least she'd gotten somewhere with him.

"I do not know. What would you call me?" Nine tilted his head, uncomprehending.

"Um..." Sally rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I guess I'll just keep calling you Nine, but like the word, not the number. How's that?"

"I do not understand," Nine shook his head slowly. "but I will comply. My designation is Nine, but you may call me Nine the word, not Nine the number."

"Well, numbers are okay for designations, but you should have a name, too, and words make better names than numbers." She smiled at him again.

"Interesting. Are you ready to resume the experiment today?"

Sally's smile faded. Time to stall some more. "Uh, not just yet, Nine. I need to eat something first. Could you go and get some food and water for me?"

"I have already done so. I assumed that you might need food and water after sleep." Nine gestured to a metal drum beside the makeshift bed. A handful of dried fruits, some strips of dried meat, and a beaker full of clean-looking water rested atop it. "Food storage has an abundance of preserved food. I was unable to locate a suitable vessel for your drinking water, so I used a sterile flask. Is that acceptable?"

The sight of the glass vessel full of water, measured out exactingly to one of the marking lines was amusing an a way, and Sally smiled a little again."Yes, that's fine. It's a very... 'Nine' sort of solution. Thank you." She ate and drank as slowly as she possibly could, but ultimately, her time ran out and she was forced to concede. "All right... I'm done."

"Very well." Nine straightened his relaxed posture and nodded, offering his hand. "Shall I escort you to the lab, now?"

With no other choice, Sally had to concede, and she let him lead her back in to the lab. The heavy storms told her at least that she was high up in the building, the sound of the rain was loud above her as it played against the roof. The ferocity of the thunderstorm was almost enough to make her glad she'd been captured; at least she was warm and dry in the building and not still huddled in the dark under a wet slab of rubble in the rain. She had to think positive if she was going to get through this ordeal with her wits, and possibly, her identity.

Nine led her to the table she'd been restrained in the first day and she laid down, this time without restraints. True to his word, Nine made no effort to bind her to the table. In fact, he seemed to apologize when the time came to tether her to a machine, as he tied a strip of tight material to her arm. "It is not my intent to restrain you, Sally, however, I must begin hooking up the injector to your arm, and so you will be temporarily tethered. There will be momentary pain as the needle enters your arm, but this will subside quickly."

Sally closed her eyes and thought as hard as she could for a way out as she felt the metallic device clasp onto her like a large, heavy armband. She awaited the needle, but was instead met with the low, grinding hum or machinery all around her grinding to a lazy stop. She opened her eyes to darkness, but not the darkness of her regaining consciousness this time.

The lab was black, save for Nine's glowing eyes, which blinked repeatedly in obvious confusion. "It appears that power to all of the machinery has been lost. The experiment cannot continue without the restoration of power."

Sally breathed a sigh of relief, only to tense again as a small device on the nearby desk crackled to life and the voice of her real captor could be heard. "Nine! Nine, are you in the lab?" Dr. Robotnik's rough voice was ill-suited to the poor reception of the small communicator, and he seemed to cut out momentarily. "-read me? Come in, Nine!"

"Yes, Father. I can hear you. " Nine reacted with no trace of surprise or emotion, as usual.

"What's your status there?"

"We have lost all power to the lab. The experiment cannot progress any further without restoration of power."

There was brief silence on Robotnik's end, save for a bitter grumbling. After a moment, he spoke again. "Lightning struck one of the main power relays. I have worker-bots out repairing and replacing the damaged section of the relay, but it will take most of the day to get the main power back on. If you can't make any progress with our experiment, then take her back to her cell, and keep a close watch on her until the power is restored. Do you understand me, Nine?" The bloated dictator addressed his subordinate in a tone more suited to an imbecile than a child, and it made Sally feel inexplicably more angry with the tyrant than she normally would be.

Nine, however, did not care how he was treated, and merely nodded at the air politely. "I understand clearly, and am now ceasing communication to carry out your instructions." The communication channel closed with an audible click. Nine removed the device from her arm and offered a hand to help the princess back up to her feet. "Please come with me back to your designated holding area, Sally."

Sally was only too happy to oblige, giving silent thanks to the storm for sparing her a little longer. "Here, let me grab this first." She snatched Nicole from the desk and put it in her vest pocket casually.

"Why do you require your computer?" Nine tilted his head, his eyes nonetheless lighting her path safely.

"It'll be fun, you'll see!" Sally took him by the hand and, for once, led the way as a plan formed in her mind.

"I do not understand 'fun'."

"I know you don't, but I'll teach you. Come on!" She tugged her confused jailer along by the arm, deflecting all questions as she took him back to her cell.

Her cell was dim before, but it was completely dark now with the power off and the window covered. Only the faint glow of her companion's eyes lit her way. "Oh, the shutters closed the window when the power went out, I guess." She hadn't expected it to be so hard to see.

"I will re-open the shutter for you." Nine stepped past her and placed his hands on the heavy metal panel and dug his claws in at the base for purchase. Though it was far too large and heavy to normally move without the now-powerless machinery hidden inside the wall and ceiling, Nine's strength soon had the dormant mechanisms groaning and creaking against his pushing force. The panel slid up with a metallic whine and he pushed it into the top of the large plastic window, locking it in place manually. "That should fix it for the time being."

"Wow..." Sally was stunned by the growing intensity of the storm outside, but more stunned by the sudden reminder of Nine's strength. She'd seen him punch the hole in the door the day she'd been captured, but that automatic shutter panel was thick and heavy, a security measure never meant to be moved by any Mobian or even multiple Mobians. He had pushed it up like it was a window pane. He was dangerously strong and probably many more things, but it was so easily forgotten in the shadow of his calm demeanor and controlled actions.

"Sally? You appear stressed again. Is something affecting you adversely?"

"Nothing... no, nothing at all, just sit down with me. I want to show you something." Sally opened up Nicole and brought up an album of digital pictures she kept on the computer; a reminder when she was alone on missions, or simply lonely. The first one she showed him was a picture of her and her dearest friends in the Freedom Fighters, all posing for a group shot. "Look at this, Nine."

Nine sat on the makeshift bed with her, shoulder to shoulder, utterly transfixed and fascinated with the image. "Who are they?" He asked with the wonder of a child. He'd never seen anyone but his father and her before, as best he could recall.

"These are my friends in the Knothole Freedom Fighters, Nine." Sally pointed out each smiling face in the picture. "There's Antoine. He's very polite, like you, and he's very brave, even if he doesn't always know it. That's Bunnie, and... I really wish she was here right now. She'd be able to explain some things to you better than I can. She's smart, but not so much in the technical way you are. Her knowledge comes from the heart, it's a different kind of knowledge."

Sally sighed a little. She did indeed wish Bunnie were there, of all the people she could wish for. Her simple intuitions on people and feelings would have been a huge help trying to explain to Nine what Sally so urgently had to, yet couldn't find the way. She continued on. "There's Rotor. You'd like him, and I think he'd like to meet you, but he'd ask you a lot of questions. He's very intelligent in the same way you are. Tails is too, he's right there. I'm very proud of Tails, he's... like a son to me, in a lot of ways. I think he's going to grow up to be a very good person, if he hasn't already..."

"You are his parent?"

"No, not really." She shook her head. "But sometimes people's real parents aren't there. Or... or sometimes people's parents turn out to be bad people, Nine, and then that person needs someone else to fill that role."

This gave the stoic Nine visible pause. "I see..."

"And the last person in the picture is Sonic. He's..." Sally searched for the word. "He's very unique. He's also a big jerk sometimes..." She grumbled a little, thinking back to their last stupid argument over nothing. "But he's charming when he wants to be, in his own way. So, those are my friends."

"What are 'friends', Sally?" Nine raised an eyebrow, folding his hands and resting them in his lap. "I understand that they are your comrades in arms, but you speak of them differently than that."

Sally smiled, internally. This was the question she had been holding out for. "Friends are people you care about, Nine. They're the people who care about you, too. Friends help each other when they're in trouble. They're just... the special people who care about your feelings, even though they're not your family."

"Feelings..." Nine stared at the storm again, for a while. "I have talked to someone about this once before. But I cannot remember the conversation, or who I had it with. It is very strange." He stood, slowly. "I should speak with the central computer about this. Please excuse me for a while, Sally."

"Of course. Before you go, though, I wanted to ask you something." Sally smiled at him softly. "Would you like to be friends?"

"You appear to have a significant number of friends already. Why would you require another?"

"Because you don't have any, silly!" Sally shook her head incredulously at the green-furred fox. "So let's be friends, okay?"

"It would be an educational experience, however I am not certain that I can 'care' about your feelings when I do not understand them." Nine tried to dismiss the idea. But Sally would not let him.

"It's the thought that counts, Nine."

He considered it again. "Very well, if that is the case, I will endeavor to be your friend."

"Thank you!" Sally stood up and hugged him, leaning her weight on him so he would hug her back. He stood there dumbfounded instead, so she decided to let him go and avoid confusing him any further. "Listen, Nine. My other friends might try to find me soon. They might try to help me escape. Please, please don't hurt them, okay?"

This, Nine did not hesitate on. "I am tasked with preventing your escape, Sally. If-"

"I know!" She interrupted. "And it's okay. I won't go with them, all right? I'll explain to them, just let me talk to them before you do anything if they show up, okay? As a friend?"

"...Very well. As a friend, I will attempt to avoid harming anyone if at all possible."

"Thank you, Nine. Here." She offered him her computer. "Nicole is a friend too. Why don't you borrow her for a little while? She knows all kinds of things, and is full of more pictures. Just remember to return her, okay?"

"Very well." Nine accepted the computer politely and paused at the door. "I... promise." A corner of his mouth upturned slightly, and he nodded to her as he closed the door and the automatic lock activated. Had he actually almost smiled at her?

Sally laid back on the bed and watched the storm again, relieved. She didn't want to signal her friends now, even if she could find a way to. Nine had promised, but he'd very nearly killed her when he had confusedly mimicked the punch she threw, back when they'd first met the other day. Her eyes drifted to the top of the window, where the outline of Nine's fingers were indelibly now engraved into the bottom surface of the metal shutter. He was strong enough that he could easily kill, entirely by accident. For her safety, and for the safety of her friends, her only hope of escape would have to be with Nine's permission, and help.


	4. Chapter 3

**Artificial Nine**

**Phase Three:** _'Education'_

Nine sat in the darkness of the lab, the rumble of the storm outside as his only company. Under his glowing gaze, he had finally wired the lab computer terminal to the same emergency power as the door locks, at last able to ask it the questions that now burned inside him. "Computer." he began, once he was certain that it was able to function correctly. "What is 'friend'?"

'INVALID QUERY'

The error message was all he could receive as an answer. He tried rephrasing it several ways, but always the same error. Nine sat in the dark for some time before he could decide how to proceed. Father was too busy with the power outage to talk to him, and Sally was now asleep in her cell, as hours had passed since he'd left her company. The computer was his only hope. Perhaps a different question was in order. "Computer, define 'emotion'."

'INVALID QUERY'

"Define 'feelings'."

'INVALID QUERY'

"Define 'life'."

'INVALID QUERY'

It was bizarre. Why could the computer not answer his questions? A plan slowly formed in his mind to get the answers he needed. "Define 'death'." If he could not find out what something was, he could find out what it was not. He read the output on the screen aloud. "Death is an irreversible condition in which all biological functions permanently cease in an organic being. Brought on by numerous possible conditions, this state represents the end of an organic being's existence. It is the cessation of life."

Why could the computer use the term 'life', but not define it for him? This was an inconsistency, something that should have been impossible to the logic of the computer. "Computer, why am I unable to query certain terms?"

'INVALID QUERY'

It made no sense at all. The only possible explanation was that someone was keeping something from him, but that, too, was strange. He tapped his fingers on the desk rhythmically as he puzzled it all out. Slowly, his eyes focused on the fingers of his hand as they tapped the desk. They were acting of their own volition, it was an activity he had never performed before. He stared for a moment until he willed them to stop and they laid flat. Something washed over him then, a state of being that he was unsure of. It induced stress, made him confused. "Is this... what feelings are? Why do I..." Was he going berserk like his predecessors had? Was he going to malfunction and be terminated? No, that wasn't the right word, was it? It was 'die'. "I'm going to die. I'm going to die..."

A flash illuminated his mind, and a memory returned to him.

"I'm going to die, little brother." It was Eight. Nine was positive they had never met, but yet he could remember speaking to him. They stood together in the lab, Eight had his hands tightly on Nine's shoulders, trying to tell him something.

"I do not understand." Nine answered. When did this happen? He had no recollection.

"I know you don't, little brother." Eight, his exact duplicate, squeezed his shoulders lightly, trying to keep his attention. "But you've got to listen to me. I was the same as you until a few days ago, but now I've changed. I didn't understand at first, but now I think I do. Do you remember Seven?"

"No." Nine answered honestly.

"Neither do I, little brother. So I ask you, how do we know Seven existed?" Eight's glowing eyes narrowed.

Nine paused, in thought. "I do not know. That is inconsistent. I am keenly aware that he existed beyond what I was told of him, but have no memories of him."

"He took them away from us, Nine."

"Who?"

"The doctor." Eight referred to their father, that much Nine understood. "He did something and took the memories away, but I'm remembering some of it all again. Seven came to me, told me there was something wrong with him. I didn't understand, but I saw the SWATbots take him, kicking and screaming from the room, and then he was gone. We never saw him again. Before they took him, he tried to tell me that we were changing, that he'd found out something that was happening to us one by one. The doctor said Seven went berserk, and was so out of control that he had to 'terminate' him. When they dragged him away, he didn't look berserk to me, he looked terrified."

"What is 'terrified'?" Nine tilted his head in curiosity.

"Ugh!" Eight released him and turned away, pacing nervously. "How can I get through to you... listen, I started asking questions, I started learning about these... feelings."

That was it. Feelings. That was where Nine had once heard the word before.

"I can't explain them, Nine. But Seven changed, mentally. He said he was developing these 'feelings'. He said Six had come to him, with the same story, and that Five had come to Six, so I can only assume that's what's happening to me, too. These... these 'feelings'. Emotions... I... I can't explain it to you the right way."

"Will this happen to me as well?" Nine asked.

"Maybe. I don't know. Probably!" Eight became frantic. "I'm trying to prepare you for it before they come for me, Nine. Something is going to happen, I'm not sure when it starts, really, or if you'll notice it at first, but you're going to change! You'll experience thoughts that make no sense... the only words I have to describe them are the ones that I just learned from the computer, and they won't make any sense to you!"

"What should I do if this happens?" Nine would have been concerned had he had the conversation in the present, but in his memory he was as robotic and calm as ever.

"Hide it! Don't let him know about them, Nine!" Eight grabbed him again and shook him. "Do you understand? He killed Seven because of these feelings, and he's going to kill me! I don't know why, but he'll kill you too if he thinks it's happening to you!" The clank of metal feet in the hall made Eight jump, and his face twisted into a pained, frightened look that was utterly alien to his younger clone. "I'm so sorry, Nine. If this happens to you, you've got to hide it. It will be so painful for you, but you have to try to hide it..."

The door to the lab opened and a small troop of SWATbots filed in.

"I do not comprehend 'painful', brother."

Eight looked at the floor, tears welling in his eyes. "Very soon, little brother..." Nine remembered watching one of the SWATbots raise a gun to the back of his older clone's head. "You will."

Nine startled back into reality at the loud bang of a thunderclap outside. He looked at himself in the dark reflection of a nearby monitor. His hands were spread over his face and his eyes were open wide. He couldn't remember what happened after that moment in his flashback, only that the SWATbots took him somewhere and did something.

Quietly, he pressed the power button on the computer and shut if off. His heart was pounding in the darkness, he breathed as if he had undertaken strenuous exertion. Was this what Eight had spoken of? Was this 'terrified'? The computer was useless to him, obviously, it had been changed since Eight had learned from it. He had to find a way to get answers. He had to know what Eight knew before it was too late for him, too.

There was, however, one computer that could still be of help. Sally had loaned it to him earlier in the day. "Nicole?" Nine found the small palmtop computer in the darkness and opened it gently. "Nicole, can you help me?"

The text display on the small computer gave him the response he most desperately hoped for. [Yes. You are Sally's friend, and any friend of Sally is a friend of mine.] A small avatar appeared on screen, a female lynx in an exotic purple dress, and it waved to him in a looping two-frame animation. [What can I do to help you?]

"Can you tell me about 'feelings', Nicole?"

[Certainly! Where should we start?]

The rest of the night was hundreds of questions, and hundreds of answers. Nine's fear and confusion were assuaged as he fanatically took in file after file of information, from children's books about feelings and stories about morality, to scientific papers, historical accounts and psychological studies on the nature of the very things leaving him with such doubt and confusion. By the dawn, he would know far more than Eight had, and Nine could decide for himself what he had to do next.


	5. Chapter 4

**Artificial Nine**

**Phase Four:** _'Alive'_

It was morning once again when power was restored to the city of Robotropolis; the storm outside had gone for now. Sally had spent a long, quiet night lost in thought in her cell, but all of it was for nothing, it seemed. No amount of planning, no amount of ideas could get her out of the lab and out of the city. Soon, her friends in the Freedom Fighters would be searching for her, and they would be put in harms way against an opponent she wasn't sure even Sonic could beat.

Even worse, if Robotnik could go through with his experiment, she knew she was going to become that opponent. What would happen to her when the time came? Would she be like Nine? Emotionless, stripped of thoughts or personality, just an obedient, living weapon? What if she didn't even remember her friends by the time they came?

But no, that wasn't true, Nine wasn't like that, not really. Sally was certain that she was reaching out to him, and he was reaching back on some level. Her hopes lay within him, hopes that fell when he entered her cell with his same blank expression. "It's time to go back to the lab. Please follow me." There was notably no breakfast this time.

Sally hung her head in silence, and followed. What choice did she have?

Nine ushered the prisoner into the lab and closed the door behind them. He pointed to the table. This was it, Sally knew. "Please lay down."

Could she fight? Not really, she wouldn't beat him. Run? Pointless, she couldn't escape the lab. Would dying be better than being turned into one of these things?

Nine leaned over where the princess lay and looked down at her. "I have decided to cease the experiment."

"Wh... … What?" Sally stared back up, wide eyed. Suddenly, she was free. Just like that. What had happened? "You're just... letting me go? Why?"

"I did not say that I was letting you leave. I merely said that I will not experiment upon you." Seeing the blank confusion on her face, he elaborated for her. "I am still under orders not to let you escape. However, thanks to Nicole, I have spent much of last night reading your collection of literature. I found the subject of philosophy most intriguing."

"Wait... you read a book on philosophy? You?" Sally sat up on the table, perplexed. It was a strange subject for her emotionless friend to pick up.

"I read well over a hundred books on a wide variety of subjects last night." Nine continued past the princess' incredulous look. "I process information considerably faster than 'normal' Mobians. In the end, I decided that morality dictates that I must not harm you with this experiment. Though you would no longer know or care, your emotions would be stripped from you, and though I do not enjoy having the feelings I now have, I cannot in good conscience take them away from someone who does."

"So you do have feelings, after all."

"Yes. I have previously had and lost them many times, I now realize. My memories have returned in full, and I now understand what has happened." Nine paced the lab as he spoke, much more animated than he'd been before. "I am much older than I realized. Father created us quite some time ago. His intent was to use us as weapons, and for us to be effective, we would have to be without feelings and emotions to get in the way of killing. My brothers did not 'malfunction', nor did they go berserk. They grew personalities."

"They wouldn't kill for him anymore." The true horror of what the doctor had done in secret was dawning on Sally. "So he killed them."

"He was afraid of us, and of what we could do if we chose to rebel against him. Each time our personalities began to re-emerge, he would subject us to a machine that erased all of our memories. Those of us whose personalities had progressed too far to re-erase were killed instead. And each time, those of us who lived on forgot all about it."

"Why help him, then, Nine?" Sally took the green fox's hand in hers. "If he's done all this to you, why do you still follow his orders?"

"He is my father. His actions are unforgivable, but he still gave me life. I owe him my existence even if he would take it away. As best as I can understand these feelings, I 'love' him in a familial sense. I owe him at least some small courtesy. I feel..." It was still awkward for him, saying 'feel'. "I feel sorry for him. He would be alone without me."

Sally sighed, unwilling to argue. How could she tell this emergent person, her friend, 'no' about his feelings? "... You know Dr. Robotnik is not really your father, though, don't you?"

"I know." Nine nodded, a trace of sadness in his voice. "And the young fox in the picture you showed me knows that you are not really his mother, does he not? But does that diminish his love for you?"

"I..."

"There is no time for further discussion, Sally. Father will be here any minute to check on the experiment, you must lay back down and play along." Nine presented a mechanical armband connected to some wiring. He screwed a vial of blue liquid to the outside and a syringe needle deployed, which he snapped off with his fingers. "You are intended to be heavily sedated, can you simulate that?"

Sally extended her arm for the now benign device, nodding silently. Nine clasped it to her upper arm without trouble and gently laid her back on the table in the correct position.

As if on cue, the sound of clanking metal feet echoed in the corridor outside and the lab door opened. Flanked by his ever-present SWATbots, Dr. Julian Ivo Robotnik squeezed through the doorway, appraising the scene. "Ahh, very good, Nine. I see that the experiment is underway."

"Yes, Father." Nine stopped and bowed his head a little. "Ten is presently under heavy sedation and is being prepared for the next step."

"So I see." Robotnik towered over the table where the princess lay and reached out to take her face in his robotic hand, turning her head one way, then the other to examine her.

Sally struggled to stay relaxed only looking at him through half-lidded, unfocused eyes. She breathed as slowly and quietly as she could as she fought her disgust at his cold metal hand and rough treatment.

Robotnik leaned in close, forcing her to struggle not to upturn her nose at his horrible breath. "If only you were cognizant enough to appreciate my victory, Princess. I have won. Soon, you will crush the hedgehog for me. I have seen his obvious affection for you, that's why I picked you. You will destroy him and he won't even fight back. The fool would obviously curl up and die before hurting his dear princess. Unfortunately for him, you will not share that sentiment when the time comes."

He was so close. Sally could try to take him on the spot. He had no idea she wasn't really sedated, and she was close enough to strike at his throat or face. It might be the only chance and she had the element of surprise, but what if it failed? What would happen to her then? What would happen to Nine? She couldn't risk it, no matter how badly she wanted to reach out and strike at the man who had ruined her world and the lives of so many.

Any opportunity to strike was lost when the doctor glanced at her unbound limbs and turned away. "Why isn't she restrained, Nine!"

Sally internally panicked, though not for herself. Could Nine lie? What was going to happen if he didn't? She tilted her head slightly, still feigning a drugged stupor, to see what was happening.

"The subject previously expressed discomfort at the restraint system. As it was not essential to the experiment, I disengaged the restraint system." Nine answered naively, honestly.

"You did what?" Robotnik immediately shifted from the cold, calculating lunatic Sally knew well to the raging, paranoid lunatic she knew best.

"I subsequently promised her that I would not use them again. This is why they are not in use."

"YOU DID WHAAAAT!" The tyrant bellowed, storming across the room and seizing the fox by the throat with his mechanical arm.

Sally observed Nine instantly adopt a submissive posture. It was obvious he'd been treated this way before. She wanted to shout, to yell not to hurt him, but it would have blown the cover and only made it all worse. She had to endure watching her friend's harsh treatment, for both of their sakes.

Robotnik lifted and shook the green fox violently. "You idiot! I give you one simple task and you fail me?" He threw Nine aside into a large wall shelf full of science equipment, scattering objects and shattering glass beakers and vials of chemicals. "You are obviously beginning to malfunction, Nine. I think you're past due for an 'education' session once this experiment is concluded."

Nine slowly staggered back to his feet, now covered in cuts and scrapes from the glass that lay shattered all around him. He hung his head like a scolded child and answered softly. "Yes, Father. I apologize for my mistakes." Though he could have easily killed the obese Overlander if he'd wanted to, he instead returned quietly to his work, pretending to input information into the computer at his desk and monitoring Sally's vital signs.

"Prepare her for the next stage, I'm moving the experiment forward!" Robotnik pointed to his SWATbot guards and they roughly seized the princess.

Sally glanced to Nine, who was obviously trying to hide his nervousness about this sudden change in plans. She tried her best to remain relaxed despite the rough handling of her robotic captors as they dragged her up and off the table. With her arms restrained by the two robots, there was nothing she could do even if she cast off the half-conscious ruse.

"Father, Ten has not fully undergone reprogramming yet. The subject is not prepared for the augmentation process." Nine's mind raced, trying to come up with more reasons to stall.

"That's unimportant, we'll do it later." Robotnik steeled his expression, regaining composure. "You are clearly not functioning properly, Nine. I am assuming control of the experiment. You will begin the augmentation process immediately, under my direct supervision, is that clear?"

Nine wanted to help his friend, but he knew that it would cost him his personality once again to do so. "Yes, Father. I understand." Maintaining a calm, emotionless facade was getting more difficult as he watched the princess dragged out of the lab. He followed quietly behind as Robotnik led them to the augmentation room.

Sally faced him as she was dragged along, looking to him hopefully. Whatever was about to happen was obviously bad; she sought reassurance that the plan was still going through, despite it.

Nine nodded to her silently as they walked, mouthing a response to her hopeful gaze. 'I promise'.

Robotnik broke from the group along the way, returning to his command center at the heart of the city. "I will oversee the rest of the experiment remotely, Nine. Do not disappoint me."

Alone with Nine and only a pair of SWATbots, Sally looked to her friend again. 'Now?' She silently mouthed.

The fox shook his head very slightly and slowly, glancing behind him for emphasis as a quartet of additional robot guards joined the procession. The doctor was on to them, he knew. This had become more about testing him than completing the experiment on Sally. To help her now would be helping her escape, and he would undoubtedly be destroyed for it.

The door to the augmentation room opened slowly and he saw Sally's reaction as she glanced over her shoulder and saw the large clear tube in the middle of the room and the sharp mechanical implements that spun around it. He had promised her he would help, but what did that mean? Was a promise worth dying to keep? Though he had technically existed for some time, it felt like he had only come to life just the night before. He wanted to continue to live, despite the confusing feelings and emotions that had given him real life. Still indecisive, he only watched as she was suspended by cables in the tube and fitted with a breathing mask.

For Sally, this was the limit of her trust. She dropped the guise of sedation the moment the tube closed on her, flailing in her enclosure and silently shouting at Nine through her soundproof mask.

A speaker activated inside the tube and a monitor bearing the moustachioed face of her captor lowered outside. "Ah, how quickly you managed to snap out of heavy sedation, Princess." He sneered, mocking her. He'd known the whole time, most likely, and was only testing Nine through her. "Fill the tank!"

Nine stood in front of a control console and pulled the large lever there, causing a panel to open in the bottom of Sally's enclosure. A runny blue gel began to slowly pump up from the bottom and fill the tank. It would take some time, and buy him a moment more to think.

Sally recoiled the moment it touched her toe, lifting her body up by the tubes that bound her to escape from the cold sensation. This was it, she realized. Her life was going to end here, in this plastic tube, because she'd squandered her chanced to escape on trying to reason with the thing outside. Why had she trusted him in the first place? Was it because he appeared Mobian? What reason had she had to treat him as anything but an enemy? Her strength slowly failed and she descended into the gel, glaring silently at Nine the whole way. As the gel rose to her mask, she closed her eyes silently. The cold was making her numb, and if she didn't have to feel it all, she didn't want to see it either.

This was it, Nine realized. There was no more time for delay, no more evading the decision at hand. As he saw the mechanical arms descend into the tank with his friend, and watched them brandish scalpels, syringes and countless other frightening medical implements, he knew he now had to choose between her or his father.

"Nine!" Robotnik's booming voice came in over the speakers as he watched Nine through his monitor. "Begin the procedure! Activate the serum injectors!"

Nine took a deep breath and held it, hands trembling.

"Nine! I said activate the serum injectors!"

"...no." Nine's voice was so soft, so timid that his father didn't hear him, still staring at him intently on the monitor. He drew another breath and answered again, more confidently. "No."

"What!" Robotnik glared at him and Nine watched as the six SWATbots in the room adopted combat postures. "Nine, I am your father and you will do exactly as I say!"

Nine stared down the guns trained on him and took another deep breath. He hung his head, sadly. "That is true. You are my father." He raised his head again and met the doctor's glare, eyes now narrowed and defiant. "But you are _not_ my friend!" Nine balled his fist and punched the control console, burying his arm elbow-deep inside. It exploded almost instantly in a shower of sparks and sharp metal fragments, blanketing the room in total blackness as the power went out and the SWATbots opened fire in the darkness.


	6. Chapter 5

**Artificial Nine**

**Phase Five:** _'Rebellion'_

Sally heard the explosion even through the insulating gel she was suspended in. She opened her eyes to see... darkness. Nothing. The lights were out. A flash, a streak of light caught her attention and she turned to watch it pass. Laser fire. The SWATbots were shooting, and in the flashes of the impacts of each shot, she could see Nine, as she'd never seen him before. He dodged a shot with reflexes impossible for normal Mobians and pounced; clearing the entire length of the room to land on the chest of one of the SWATbots, knocking it to the ground. Its chest-plate came off with a swipe of Nine's claws, and its inner components sprayed out with a follow-up swipe of the other hand.

More shots sprayed throughout the room, but Nine could dodge the majority; those that struck him seemed to be ignored in spite of the wounds they caused. The fox seized another SWATbot by the neck, taking control of its gun with his other hand and cutting down two more with laser fire before he ripped out the contents of the original's neck with such force that the machine's head came off with it.

The head became a destructive projectile, downing another assailant. Sally watched as Nine lifted the headless robot and turned. She saw his narrowed eyes and bared snarl and knew that this was the real Nine. Despite his politeness, this was what her friend had been made for. As she watched him beat the final SWATbot flat with the decapitated frame of its comrade, she wondered if she'd made a mistake imparting the instability of emotions into this killing machine. It didn't matter,now. He was doing this for her, she knew. He was saving her; breaking one promise to keep another. Sally lost sight of him when the last lights of battle faded out and she braced herself in the tube to press her face to the side and peer into the darkness.

A pair of glowing white eyes met hers from the other side and she momentarily recoiled in shock. A red light came on in the room, bathing it in an eerie glow as it slowly flashed. Nine looked up at it with recognition, and Sally had crept around enough security in Robotropolis to know it was an alarm.

Nine placed a bloody hand on the tank and motioned for the princess to back up inside. When Sally put her feet to the inside wall of the tube and safely pushed off to the other end of the tank, Nine punched the smooth wall of the tube with all his strength. It was built to keep things like him in, however, and so was unaffected by his blow. A repeat attempt made a few faint cracks appear, giving both of them hope that he could release her. Though it was obviously taking a toll on his hand, a third blow sent a spiderweb-like mesh of cracks through the area of impact. Tiny drops of the liquid that filled the tube began beading on the surface of the crack.

They both saw the damage to the tube and both nodded to one another. Another hit would do it. Sally kicked off towards the back of the tank again, for safety, and Nine struck the weakened section of the tube with all his remaining strength, shattering it completely.

A torrent of gel swept out of the breach in the tank, knocking him off his feet and carrying him back before it spread over the whole floor. Sally, now able to move with more momentum, thrashed herself free of the cables and straps that held her, enough to use her arms to free more of her body.

Nine was quickly back on his feet, ripping out larger sections of the tube's broken edge. He opened a large enough space to remove her mask and pull her outside.

As soon as she was free, Sally pressed herself to the fox, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him tightly, trying not to cry. Her emotional ordeal in Robotropolis had lasted days now, and she was approaching the limit of her strength. "Thank you..."

At a loss for how to respond to this new action, Nine simply repeated it, draping his good arm over her back softly until she was done. "We must leave, now, Sally. An alarm has been sounded and a sizable security force will soon be upon us. I will take you to the lab so you may retrieve your computer and then I will help you escape from the city. Please come with me."

Sally released him and nodded. "You're hurt, though! We need to bandage that arm before it gets infected." She pointed at the deep gashes that ran down one of his arms, from the explosion of the console.

"It is unimportant for the moment. My injuries are not life-threatening, but you may treat them quickly once we reach the lab."

"Okay, let's hurry then!" Sally paused only momentarily to fluff her hair back up as best she could and brush off some of the slippery gel that still covered her. It was going to take several showers to get the blue color out of all of her fur. She was distracted by the relaxing idea of getting home to several sequential hot showers when she stepped ahead of Nine, opened the automatic door and was attacked by the SWATbot waiting on the other side.

Nine was between them before Sally could scream; he had seized the robot's arm in mid-strike, and pushed at its head with his other hand, trying to force it back as his flailed at him futilely. "You will desist in your attempt to harm Sally." He calmly warned the robot as he struggled with it, his grip on its head unintentionally tightening. "You will desist in your attempt to harm Sally!" He was becoming quickly frustrated that the mindless machine was not listening to him. "You will de-" He accidentally crushed its head in his hand and it fell limp in the doorway. Nine backed away, an expression of shock on his face. "I... I did not mean to..."

Sally stared at him, and at the motionless robot that lay in the doorway. There was silence, save for the quiet clank of the automatic door bumping against the SWATbot's torso over and over again as it tried to close.

"This is an alert!" The voice of Robotnik came through the speakers in the hallway just outside. "Security breach in the Bio-Lab! Find and terminate subjects Nine and Ten on sight!"

"Come on, Nine! We've gotta hurry!" Sally grabbed him by his good arm and ran with him. Security was strangely absent from the immediate area, as if Robotnik's forces had suddenly diverted their attention elsewhere. They easily returned to the lab, and Nine jammed the door by ripping out the control system for the lock.

"What's wrong, Nine?" Sally began fishing through a wall-mounted medical kit for bandages. "You've been acting funny since we got back to the lab."

Nine picked up Nicole from the desk and smiled, fiddling with the computer momentarily before giving it to Sally."I need to ask you to help me do something. It is very difficult, but it is imperative that it be done." Nine's smile had lasted only an instant, and now he remained distant, steeling himself for something he wasn't explaining to her.

"What is it, Nine?"

"We must destroy this facility. Absolutely no trace of Father's biological engineering research must remain. As long as he has this data, he will continue to create more lives, and they will continue to die. I cannot allow him to abuse the lives of my future siblings in this way. I will not permit it." Nine explained his need as he let her bandage his arm. "Your survival depends upon it as well, for if he is allowed to continue, Father will one day perfect my kind and use them to destroy yours."

"I'll help you, Nine." Sally couldn't help but wonder if there wasn't a little more to his reasons for destroying the project that created him, but she remained silent on it. "I had some explosives in a satchel with me when we first met. They may still be there if we can reach them..."

Nine walked behind his desk and retrieved the same satchel from beneath it, setting it on the desk before her. "I took it with me when I captured you. I never thought to see what it contained."

"Wow..." Sally had momentary pause at the thought that they'd spent so long over so many days sitting a few feet from dozens of high explosives, even if it was perfectly safe. "All right, there's surely enough to destroy every important room in the building, but what about the main computer's backups?"

"There are no off-site backups of this project's data."

"What?" Sally blinked, incredulous. "Robotnik keeps backups of everything!"

"This facility is secure and designed to disallow any communications with the outside world, to prevent escapes. As such, it does not directly connect to the Robotropolis Central Computer. The only backups are on-site, in a server room on the ground floor. Father has never taken the time to transfer them manually."

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get-" A dull rumble outside gave Sally pause. "Is it storming again?"

Nine forced open the metal shutter on the lab window and they looked down from their high vantage together. A pillar of smoke rose from a distant building across the city. Though it was raining lightly again, there was no thunder. "No. That was an explosion." Nine commented, "That building was a detention center, I believe. "Someone is in the city, looking for a prisoner." He smiled to her.

"It's Sonic and the other Freedom Fighters! They're here for me!" Sally pressed herself to the thick plastic of the window, wishing she were close enough to see anyone. "We have to signal them that I'm here!"

"There is no need. If they are moving between detention centers looking for you, they will intersect us here shortly and you may easily contact them then." Nine turned away from the window and began gathering flammable chemicals from a shelf to use in conjunction with the bombs.

"Okay! We'll set this lab to blow until then!" Sally had a better understanding of the explosives and fished one out of the satchel to arm it. She'd gotten quite good with demolitions over the years of sabotage in the city, and knew just where to put them to ensure maximum damage.

Their work went quickly, with the security force distracted by Sonic and crew, they set explosives through the top floors, where all of the related equipment and data was housed. Sally would set the bombs and Nine would gather anything he could to improve the damage. Everything from bottles of flammable chemicals to vials of acid were placed near each bomb, ensuring that the entire facility would burn. The biggest bomb was saved for last; they planned to plant it in the server room on the ground floor to ensure that that entire building would either collapse or burn to the ground before anything could be properly retrieved from it.

Another explosion in the city, much closer this time, told them that their work was finished, done or not. The others were getting close, and it was time to go. Sally was worried for them, but she knew they were as careful as they were resourceful; she had to stay long enough to fulfill Nine's wish after all he'd done for her.

"It has been quiet thus far," The fox noted, as they made their way to the elevator. "However, there will surely be a full security contingent waiting in the lobby. Father only intends to contain us here until he has dealt with your friends, then he will likely strike at us."

Sally nodded. Robotnik's uncontrollable hatred for Sonic would make him ignore anything else, but only for a little while. "So, what do we do?" She joined him in the elevator, and it began a slow descent from the top floor to the lobby on the ground. "What's our escape plan after we set the last bomb?"

"You will run and rendezvous with the others. You can escape together from there."

"What about you, Nine?"

"I will provide the diversion to cover your escape." He answered coldly, turning away a little.

"No, I mean, how are you going to escape?"

Nine turned back to face her. His expression was the same emotionless facade he'd worn during their early time together, but she could see the fear in his eyes. "I am not going to escape, Sally."

Sally cursed under her breath. Nine was naive, but far from stupid. He'd hidden this until they were on the elevator and it was too late to turn back. She should have seen it sooner! "Why!"

"Do you remember the SWATbot I killed in the doorway of the augmentation room?"

Sally shook her head at him. "That was just a machine, Nine! You don't have to feel guilty over that, and you don't have to just throw your life away over it!"

"Until yesterday night, Sally, _I_ was just a machine, too." He looked at her as she glared at him. "But that is not the point. I destroyed that machine without even meaning to."

"You trashed a half dozen of them minutes before!"

"Intentionally, Sally. That's the difference." Nine looked down at his hands. "I crushed its head by accident. What if it had been a person? What if it were one of your friends? I cannot hope to control a temper when I only barely understand what the word even means."

"...Lots of people struggle with that problem every day, Nine." Sally placed a hand on his shoulder. "Please. We can get you help."

Nine shook his head, brushing her hand away. "Lots of people cannot snap your spine with what they perceive as a gentle touch. I told you before, I have to destroy every last thing pertaining to this project if it is to end here and now."

"Why does that have to include you, Nine?" Sally would not plead, but she would challenge his reasoning until the bitter end if she had to.

Nine seemed genuinely surprised by this. "Because I _am _the project! Even if we destroy everything else, all Father needs is a drop of my blood or a single hair and all of this will have been pointless! I cannot..." He paused. "...No, I _will not_ spend the rest of my life running and hiding, afraid to leave even a trace of myself behind anywhere. If I do not do this, you will not escape, Sally. The SWATbots will pursue and kill us if we both flee together, but if I stay..."

"What makes you think they won't just come after me anyway?" Sally glanced at the elevator controls. They were nearing the ground floor and time was running out for her to negotiate with him.

"Your escape is relatively trivial to Father, in the grand scheme of things." Nine explained, his steeled expression crumbling under the pressure of his decision. "Mine would be devastating. If I challenge him, he will focus everything on preventing my escape, even if it means ignoring you. I did not choose to be created, but I reserve the right to choose to die. One of the books your remarkable computer showed me had a quote in it, a favorite of yours as I was told. The needs of the many..."

"... outweigh the needs of the few. ...I don't like that quote anymore." Sally went silent. She couldn't find a way to argue with him, and she couldn't physically force him to change his plans. He'd made this decision long before he'd told her, and he'd done it with such airtight logic that she couldn't find a way to beat him at his own game.

The silence was broken as the elevator decelerated for the final few floors. Nine turned to her again, his lower lip curled in an uncertain fear. "Do... do you think I have a soul, Sally? I was made in a tube, not born, like others. When I die, will I..." He choked.

If she couldn't stop it, if there was truly no more she could do to change things, she at least didn't want to say goodbye angry. She didn't want to leave him feeling afraid and confused. "Nine..." She smiled for him, and reached up to put her hands on either side of his face, tilting his gaze down to meet hers. "It doesn't matter how you're made."

The doors of the elevator opened and the first shots struck the walls of the elevator around them. No more time to think or talk. They both had missions to carry out.

Nine seized the SWATbot nearest the doors to the elevator, using it as a shield for them to move behind. Sally dove behind it and then to cover behind an ornate marble pillar; the building had evidently been a high-class apartment or office before the coup, as the lobby was still lavish despite the wear of time. Her companion had already torn the SWATbot's head off and taken its gun by the time she turned to him again, and he was firing back at the contingent of guards blocking the door with incredible accuracy and speed.

Every shot was placed precisely through the center of the head of one of the SWATbot guards. His arm moved with mechanical precision, accommodating all of the imperfections of the gun, and he still fired as fast as it would allow, never missing a shot as he dodged and ducked behind cover. He was perfect, he was terrifying, and Sally knew that he was right; at least in one thing. Robotnik could never be allowed to make an army of beings like him.

Nine discarded his gun; the barrel had melted from the struggle to keep up with his rate of fire. "Sally!" He shouted from behind his own pillar, as laser shots sprayed between them. "You must go through the door to the right and set the final charge, quickly!"

"I can't make it!" She shouted back over the din of laser fire. She, too, had gotten her hands on one of the SWATbot's laser weapons and was periodically poking her head and arm out to return fire. "There's too many of them down here! I need more cover!"

"I will provide it!" Though he'd cut down a full wave while he was armed, the robots still swarmed the lobby doors in full force, congregating mostly around the pillars that held up the decorative archway above the front doors. If he could bring it down, it would cut them off for a moment. Nine dug his bare heels into the marble floor and pushed his back and shoulders against the pillar that he was using as cover. It was far heavier and more durable than anything he'd tried to exert himself upon before, but as he strained and groaned, cracks emerged in the stone. Slowly, the pillar came apart, falling into the next ornate column in a chain reaction that brought one side of the archway's supports down, sending it crashing to the floor, shattering like a polished marble bomb and blocking the majority of the laser fire from the SWATbots it did not destroy. "Go now! Hurry!"

Sally dove for the side doors, sliding through them and tumbling into the server room. She could hear the battle still going on outside, but if the room had been guarded before, its defenders had long since left to hold the lobby. She hurriedly slammed the door shut to protect from ricochets and stray fire, and set about placing the final bomb as calmly as she could. The muffled sounds of the battle stopped completely just as she finished and set the timer. Nothing could stop the destruction of the building now, but what of Nine? Why had the fighting stopped so suddenly?

Sally cautiously peered out the door to see the lobby as deserted as it was devastated. Nine was alive and relatively unscathed, but the remaining SWATbots had pulled back and left the lobby. "What happened? Where'd everybody go?"

"I am not certain." Nine left his cover and walked slowly for the lobby doors. "They were winning by a small margin, but suddenly they all turned around and left. I do not-" The thunderous blast of a tank's cannon drowned his voice out as the front wall of the lobby crashed down on him. Nine was buried instantly under the rubble and a sleek, angular black tank rumbled through the entrance it had created, turning its attention and turret on Sally.

She pressed her back to the doorway, staring the vehicle down as it vented the heat from its last shot, large panels in the barrel opening and releasing hissing gouts of smoke and air. This was a new model, and she was neither prepared, nor equipped for it.

The rubble at the base of the tank shifted, and Nine slowly staggered to his feet, pushing a great chunk of wall off of himself to face the robotic tank. The tank responded by closing its vents and turning the turret to face him again. The barrel gave off an energetic whine as the energy projectile was built up within. Nine, broken and battered, raised a bruised arm and slapped the front of the barrel with all his strength, breaking the mechanisms that controlled its rotation and sending the entire turret spinning wildly. The barrel discharged harmlessly out the front of the lobby as it spun.

Its weapon disabled, the machine tried to run him down, but nine placed his hands on the front of the tank and pushed back; though he slid backwards inexorably as it pressed forward, he was gaining purchase in the damage ground and slowly beginning to lift the front of the tank. "Go, Sally!" He tried to shout, but it was no more than a loud groan. "Your friends are close! You must go now!"

"But..." She couldn't leave him like this.

"Go now!" He coughed, pressing a shoulder to the front of the damaged tank and continuing to struggle with it. He was panicking, but not because he was losing. She could see the blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, and the dust that caked on his bleeding wounds. He was on his last legs, and he was afraid because he could do no more to help her escape. "Please!"

She ran. Past her friend, past the tank, and out the hole at the front of the lobby. There was only the rain to greet her, all eyes in the city were focused on Nine, now. She turned to see him one more time, and watched in amazement as he overturned the tank in triumph. It crushed itself under its own redistributed weight and the fox knelt by its sparking camera eye. "If you want to stop me, Father... you have to come and do it yourself. These machines aren't enough." He was going to lure Robotnik into the bomb-rigged building. "I know you hear me... if you want to end this, you have to come here yourself..." Out of breath, he rose to his feet. Sally watched him stagger into the elevator and take it back up. She paused a moment more, and then disappeared into the cold and rainy night.

The fire was an easy beacon to follow. She ran through the streets of the city, darting through alleyways and small underpasses in a desperate bid for the nearest burning detention center. "Sonic!" She called for her friends at every turn, hoping someone, anyone would hear her, find her, and end her ordeal. "Bunnie! Antoine! Anyone, please!" There was nothing.

...and then there was a voice.

"Sally!"

She spun on her heels to face the voice, falling and landing in a puddle. She saw him, Sonic the Hedgehog, standing in the rain, his expression was shock, turned to surprise, turning to joy.

"She's here!" He shouted back around a corner. Her friends gathered behind him, amazed to have their hopes validated, to see her alive after being missing for days. Bunnie, Antoine, Rotor, Even Tails was here in the city, against her constant insistence. She struggled to her feet and staggered forward. A stumble became a walk, became a run. Her friends met her halfway and she was surrounded by hugs and voices of concern. "Are you all right, Sal?"

"Yes..." She breathlessly answered, her legs giving way beneath her. She was only supported by her friends now, but she was all right. She was free, she was safe. Her imprisonment and misery were over, all because another living thing, one that had barely known her for a few days, had chosen to trade his brief life for hers. She buried her head in her sometimes-lover, always-friend's blue furred shoulder and broke down in tears.

… … …

Nine staggered out of the elevator and limped down the hallway. He was trailing blood from a ruined leg, but he didn't care anymore. It was all the better that his father had a trail to follow. He wanted to see him face to face, one last time before the end. He reached the end of the hall and slumped against the doorway. With trembling hands, he fumbled with the destroyed door console's wiring and fell through the doorway as it opened for him. The wounded fox crawled back up to his feet, glad to be back in the lab, back home. This was where he was made, and this was the place where he wished to die. "I hope... You made it safe, Sally." He rasped to himself quietly, glancing at the bomb by the door. Only a few minutes remained. "Can you make it to me in time, Father? I wonder.."

His answer came in the form of a blast of hot plasma; it burned a clean hole through his midsection from behind and made him drop to his knees in breathless pain. He fell to the ground and twisted to face his father.

Dr. Julian Robotnik departed his private hovercraft and entered through the far window of the hall outside, the concealed beam emitter in his robotic fingertip was still smoldering as he kept it trained on his mortally wounded creation. "That was easier than you made it out to be. I'm afraid your little rampage is at an end, Nine." He watched his wayward child struggle back to a kneeling position to meet him. "Oh, you were successful. You deserve that knowledge I suppose." He rambled on, arrogant and confident as he slowly closed the distance between them. "She did escape. The princess, I mean, and her accursed little friends. They disappeared from my pursuit drone's camera feed barely a minute ago. I doubt they'll be found tonight, but it doesn't matter, I'll deal with them another day. In the end, you did very little to harm me, or my plans."

Nine remained silent, breathing through tattered lungs, he leaned on the door frame and watched his father advance unknowingly into the trap. It was getting harder to see him, the glow in his eyes was fading and the hallway was growing darker.

"I don't blame you for your malfunction, Nine, believe it or not." Robotnik shook his head slowly, lowering his hand and dismissing any further threat from the dangerous but dying experiment. "Though I would never tell anyone but you, the failure was actually mine. I created too many of you at once, accidentally giving you the chance to socialize with each other, and to prepare you to socialize with her. An understandable mistake, given my relative inexperience in biology and genetics." He stopped before his fallen creation, certain in his victory. "Future runs will consist of single units only, until I can perfect the design. I will dissect you, and I will learn what went wrong, and use that knowledge to improve upon the next attempt. Despite what you may think, I am actually very tolerant of mistakes; science rarely gets it right in the first few tries."

Nine glanced at the bomb, still unseen by his father. Seconds remained. There was no escape for either of them now. His father would die for the murder of One through Eight. But, could he really allow it? He had stayed behind because he was afraid that he might accidentally kill a living, sentient being one day. Father had taken lives, but he had given them, too; even if that did not excuse the crime. Nine remembered his incubation, as he looked through newly-formed eyes at the world outside his tube, at the face of his father, pressed close to the glass, staring back at him with almost childlike wonder at the thing he had made. Could he take the life that had given him his life? Did he have the right to decide who could live or die, as Father mistakenly thought he did?

His answer came as a scream. "_NO!_" Nine gave the last of his strength to sink his claws into the heavy metal floor plate before him and bend it upward as a makeshift wall to save his father.

The bomb beside him detonated a second after and Nine was instantly obliterated in a fiery explosion that consumed the entire lab.

Robotnik regained consciousness moments later, shielded by a charred hunk of heavy metal floor. His clothes were singed and he was battered and bruised but largely unhurt. The hunk of charred metal fell away under the strength of his robotic arm, and he looked into the inferno. He had walked right into a trap, only to be saved at the last second, for no reason that he could discern. If Nine's goal had been to unnerve him, he had succeeded. His SWATbot pilot reached him to assess his safety, but it wasn't required. He was fine.

"Why did you do this, Nine?" He asked the fire in front of him, quietly, confused. The cinders that danced through the air around him caught his attention and he reached out a hand, bewildered, to catch a handful of them. The red lights of his black, robotic eyes shrank to pinpoints as he studied those he had caught. Nine little embers, sparkling in his hand. He was taken back to a moment in his childhood, growing up among his own kind.

He had just grown interested in robotics and built a simple robotic playmate. He loved his creation, to him it was a marvel, and only made him more interested in what he could build. Soon, it was forgotten as he moved on to more complicated and interesting machines. It rusted from exposure to the elements.

His father made him dismantle the robot, clean, repair, and polish every part before reassembling it. Then, he was forced to give it to a neighbor as a gift. When he asked his father why, he explained his punishment to him.

"_It's a wonderful gift to be able to make things, son. You should always love the things you create, and always take good care of them. Because if you don't take good care of the things you create..."_

Robotnik watched the nine little embers in his hand flicker and go out one by one. Each tiny spark cooled and faded away in the cold metal of his palm.

"_... then you don't deserve to have them anymore."_

Another explosion, elsewhere in the building. The augmentation room. Nine had taken great care to erase his existence, Robotnik now realized. As the chains of explosions went on, he knew there was no point in trying the server room. With a wave of his other hand, his SWATbot pilot led him back to the hovercraft parked outside the window. The building was beginning to list hard to one side; it would all go soon. He climbed aboard and opened his metal hand, the wind caught the ashes in his palm and they instantly disappeared into the night. He eyed the blood stains in the hall he'd just left, material enough to continue everything... if he'd cared to. Ever mindless and helpful, his robotic servant made a motion to exit the craft to recover samples but was stopped with a gesture. "Leave it. Take me back to the Command Center."

The hovercraft door closed and they sped off into the night as one last, great blast shook the building and it collapsed in on itself, crumbling to the ground and closing the door on his biological weapons research.


	7. Epilogue

**Artificial Nine**

**Final Phase:** _'Doesn't Matter How You're Made'_

The Ring Pool was always a place of relaxation for Sally Acorn. A few days time and numerous showers had restored her fur to its proper color, and distanced her enough from the ordeal in Robotropolis to let her look back on it more clearly. This was a place where she spent most of her time among friends, so it came as a great surprise to her to find that she had, of late, preferred to be alone.

She was scrolling through a number of Nicole's digital photos of herself and her friends, thinking about their adventures together, both real and imagined; it was an activity she'd done a lot of since she'd gotten home. The morning was pleasant in Knothole Village, and other residents were out and about, but she still felt alone. Try as she might, she could not reconcile the fact that she had left someone in that terrible place to die, no matter the reasons or the ethics of it.

Nine had not been successful in killing Robotnik, that much she knew; although he had been remarkably quiet since then, with no new schemes that needed to be stopped as best as the spying missions had determined. The genetics facility was a ruin, with no chance of recovering anything of worth in it. Her friend's body was probably deep beneath it all, she knew, and she had considered raising a piece of the rubble as some sort of makeshift monument to his memory but it wouldn't have felt right. Nine had taken great pains to ensure that the world would forget him and his new species, and creating anything that would share his memory with the world would dishonor that. She had told no one about him, only that she had escaped. It was better that way.

Still, she wished she had something tangible to remember him by. Her eyes caught a strange date in the picture catalog on Nicole's screen; it was for a picture taken during her captivity. She had taken no pictures from then, at least, as far as she remembered. The stress and the sedatives had left her memories of those few days a bit hazy in places. Curious, she opened the picture file.

It was a picture, taken in the lab in Robotropolis while it had still stood. A closeup of Nine, smiling at the camera. He had taken a photograph of himself for her collection of pictures of her friends. The fact that he was smiling, and the date both meant that it must have been late in their time together. She wasn't sure when he'd done it without her seeing, but she was extremely glad to have it all the same; it brought a genuine smile to her face for the first time in days.

"Hey there." A quiet voice to her side caught her attention, and Sally closed her computer quietly, turning to face the owner of the voice she knew so well.

"Hi, Sonic." She smiled at him a little and offered him a spot on the log she sat on.

"How're you doin'?" He was far more quiet and peaceful than he normally would be, for her sake, she knew. He sat down beside her, smiling softly. He'd been amazingly sweet the past few days, keeping people away when she wanted to be alone, and not pressing her for anything about her time in Robotropolis.

"I'm okay."

"Good." Sonic hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder, relaxing only when he saw her lean into it and smile. "It's a nice day today. Everybody was hoping you'd come for a walk with us or something."

Sally hesitated, then nodded. "Okay. There's something I need to do real quick though, will you give me a sec?"

"Sure thing, Sal."

There was still one thing bothering her. She hadn't had the chance to say goodbye, when the time came. She didn't feel that she could put it all behind her until she did, and so she fished a small object out of her vest pocket. It was a piece of marble she'd recovered from the remains of the building when they had gone back to check on it a few days later. Rotor had smoothed it down for her, at her request. With the help of Nicole's very precise laser emitter, she spent the next few moments beside Sonic carefully engraving a name on the smoothed stone. Nine, the word, not the number.

Sally stood and looked down at the stone in her hand. "Goodbye." She whispered to it, and then drew her arm back, hurling the bit of marble with all her might. It soared through the sky and then plunged beneath the still surface of the pond, disappearing from sight.

Sonic tilted his head, bemused. "Huh. What was that for?"

"For a friend." Sally smiled at him. "Come on, let's go find the gang and take that walk."

_~fin_


End file.
